Lacking a consistent sales process
While Garrett was already highly successful, the business wanted to mature its sales process as it scaled.
Garrett’s sales team was highly talented, but its customer playbook was holding them back. Sales reps used disconnected tools, saved data locally, and worked in silos. Their daily workload was bloated with manual activities that weren’t helping them sell more.
Reps found their productivity stifled and had a nagging feeling they weren’t reaching their full potential.
Michael says, “Everything was in people’s heads. While that's effective for a while, if you want to grow, you've got to get that information out of those heads and into a more consistent and repeatable process.”
In the dark about where to focus efforts
Without a central location to manage the sales journey, reps were in the dark about what was working in the pipeline and what wasn’t. With zero insights, they wasted time on tactics that weren’t always effective. They were doing more, but not selling more.
Garrett’s reps also lacked metrics into which prospects to prioritize. While they wanted to focus their efforts on building stronger relationships with the most promising prospects, they wasted time on some who weren’t an ideal fit.
A dearth of data also meant they couldn’t optimize pricing for the best results.
Michael says, “We knew how many products we'd sold, we knew how much we had shipped, but we didn't know how we got there. Where were we successful? What pricing was working? Were we too high or too low? We were doing everything without being able to learn from it.”
Scattered prospecting leaves less time for high-value work
Prospecting was particularly challenging for Michael and his team. Marketing did a great job on outreach and supplied the team with high quality leads. But with no central platform to track sales calls, reps spent more time chasing contacts than having meaningful conversations.
Marketing handed over between 20 and 40 leads each week. Michael would make as many as 50 calls a day, following up and doing all he could to turn them into deals. He was working 80-hour weeks to get everything done.
He says, “I was chasing leads forever. My cell phone was ringing off the hook and my wife was ready to throw it out the window. I was doing quotes until the wee hours of the morning. Everything felt reactionary and scattered and it was hard to organize my day.”
Creating a transparent sales journey with Sales Hub
Garrett’s CEO tasked Michael with finding the best solution to centralize sales activity, accelerate speed to order, and further improve the customer experience.
Michael had previously used SugarCRM and Salesforce but, “didn’t care for either of those much.”
After some research, he selected HubSpot Sales Hub. It gave Garrett all the tools, combined with an easy learning curve, to streamline sales and maximize productivity.
Now, every step of their process from early-stage lead to closed customer is managed through Sales Hub. Each step is clear and repeatable, and everyone on the team can see what happens and when.
Organized prospecting powers up productivity
One function of Sales Hub is the absolute MVP for Michael.
“Meetings has absolutely changed my life,” he says.
HubSpot’s Meetings scheduler makes the onerous task of chasing leads a thing of the past.
When Marketing passes over a lead, Michael emails a link to the contact who selects an open slot on his calendar. Meetings are scheduled faster, with no cell phone ping-pong.
He says, “My day is laid out and organized now. My phone's not ringing at 7PM anymore because everyone knows if you need me, you schedule a time. I do more with the leads I have, and close more of them faster.”
Sales Hub’s Quotes tool adds further rocket fuel to the speed to order.
“I can do a $200,000 quote while I have someone on the phone and send it there and then—and that's impressive to the customer. HubSpot allows us to see when quotes are opened by customers. So we know the right time to follow-up and close that deal.”
Scaling insightfully with Reports
Sales Hub’s reporting tools unlock a world of insights that were previously hidden from Garrett. Michael and his team generate standard and custom reports to understand everything from the sales team’s performance to customer behavior.
“To be a highly successful sales organization, you've gotta be able to replicate the good and eliminate the bad—and Sales Hub helps us do that,” says Michael.
“Now, we can look and see, hey, we've quoted this product. We know how often we close deals on it. We know how it sells. We also know who our customers are, and what they buy, so we can look at that data before calling them and know if we have a good shot at closing a deal.”
Orders and payments simplified
Before HubSpot, processing a customer order took up to 45 minutes, because sales reps provided information in wildly different formats. With Sales Hub providing more consistency, orders are processed in just 5 minutes.
HubSpot’s Payments function accelerates transactions even more. With an increasing number of customers wishing to pay by ACH or credit card, Michael copies a payment link into the quote and customers pay instantly and securely.
Garrett has increased pre-payment 20X since implementing Payments, which is great for the company’s cashflow. Garrett’s customers benefit, too, because faster transactions mean faster delivery of their orders.
Faster speed to order
With prospecting streamlined and friction eliminated across the sales process, Garrett closes deals faster. Michael and his team sleep better knowing customers secure their events and venues with no delay.
“We increase our speed to order, because HubSpot helps us get the clutter out of the way. I talk to the customer or prospect sooner and do what I’m good at—selling. So we get the order sold quicker.”
Reducing weekly workload by 50%
Sales Hub has reduced Michael’s working week from 80 hours to just 40!
He explains, “All of that previous chaos is now organized into an 8-hour day. Instead of making 50 calls, I make 10 scheduled calls to qualified people, who know I’m going to call them and want to talk to me.
“As a sales guy, I love it. It has allowed me to free my mind and focus—and has absolutely changed my quality of life.”
With Sales Hub, Garrett has reduced the manual tasks that were distracting the team. They’ve replaced onerous, low-value activities, with high-value, customer-oriented work. And by powering up their productivity, they’ve increased profitability.
“Over the past three years, our division has had the highest profitability. We're also the only one that added HubSpot, and that's not a coincidence!”
Sales Hub accelerates growth
Sales Hub helps Garrett reduce operational costs, connect effectively with customers, and close deals at pace.
These advantages were instrumental in helping the business grow sales 125% and 120% respectively in the two years since implementation.
More time to focus on keeping customers secure
With so much time back in hand, Michael and his team have the bandwidth to build deeper customer relationships that foster loyalty and retention. Moving forward, they plan to harness more HubSpot tools, including building automations to follow up on quotes and leads even more effectively.
Michael recommends HubSpot to sales leaders who want to power up their productivity, understand customers’ challenges better, and provide stronger outcomes.
“HubSpot is user-friendly and sales-focused, so you're not doing a lot of stuff that you don't need to. Reducing the clutter and increasing the speed is just about what every salesperson wants.”
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